Category Archives: project logs

ThrAxis DIY CNC mill

Eric has posted details on his build of a CNC mill from scratch. The ThrAxis (Three-Axis) is a vertical milling machine made mostly from materials from hardware stores. The spindle is a Harbor Freight rotary tool and the motors and controllers are surplus and eBay finds. We made it during lots of late evenings using […]

Fruit machine, 7-segment one-armed bandit

Bertho  shared his fruit machine, a 7-segment one-armed bandit in the project log forum: I was revisiting the first program I ever wrote and decided it was time to redo the project with “modern” micro tech. The Fruit Machine is a One-armed Bandit (slot-machine) implemented with 7-segment displays. It has 4 displays to represent the “reels” and […]

Simple soldering iron driver (SSID) with Arduino PID control

Carlazar posted pictures of his simple soldering iron driver (SSID) with Arduino PID control in the project log forum: Main features are: – Any thermocouple type irons. – Additional control mode: On-Off controller (besides PID PWM). – External power supply: Some standard Notebook power supply DC 19V, 4.74A. – Small dimensions: It fits into 90mm […]

Modularized homebrew spectrum analyzer

Mathias Weyland writes, I’m building a homebrew spectrum analyzer (based on an existing project) and while doing so, I used the Open Bench Logic Sniffer to test my logic board. I have documented my attempts here; the Logic Analyzer part starts around minute 21. The video makes most sense in conjunction with the second video, […]

USB isolator project

Scasagrande shared his USB isolator project, that is available at Github: I received inspiration for the project from other USB isolator projects on the internet. Mine features a few improvements to many of them: USB-B and micro-USB connectors on the host (upstream) side In addition to accepting power via the barrel connector (which goes through […]

BLDC motor control using Atmega328

Nich Fugal from Makeatronics is working on a BLDC motor controller. I call it a smart BLDC commutator. In a nutshell it’s a dedicated atmega328 that monitors the hall effect sensors on a brushless DC motor and takes care of the commutating and driver circuitry. It’s smart because it has the ability to extract and […]

ChipStomp, a digital effects pedal with a ChipKit DP32 and Stompshield

Catmacey has been working on a digital guitar effects processor based on a PIC32MX, the  ChipStomp: Here’s another “Guitar stomp box” project… This one combines a Chipkit DP32 (PIC32MX) with an Open music labs Stomp Shield to sample audio, mess with it and squirt it back out at 44Khz. It uses the built-in 10bit ADC for input […]

Hi-Fi audio power amplifier for experiments and general use

Dilshan Jayakody writes: This is high quality audio power amplifier which we constructed for our audio related experiments. This amplifier is based on NXP’s TDA1521A integrated circuit and it is capable to deliver 2 × 6W audio output power with 20V – 25V asymmetrical power source. The design of this power amplifier is heavily based […]

1.3”OLED with SSD1306 controlled by Bus Pirate

Markus Gritsch writes: I wrote a quick Python script to communicate with an SSD1306 driven OLED connected to a PC with a Bus Pirate. The script uses the Bus Pirates raw SPI mode and manages to update the little screen slightly faster than 10 times per second. Via the project log forum. Check out the […]

miniLOG – Precision standalone voltage logger

Jakub Felcenloben over at Electronics Lab has written up documentation on his latest project called miniLOG, a basic data logger: miniLOG is a precise standalone voltage logger that save the data on a SD card. It has 4 basic analog channels: one has 12bit resolution for voltage measurements, two channels have 10bit resolution for voltage measurements and […]

Power bar, a small breadboard power supply

NsN has been working on a power bar, a small breadboard power supply: The power bar is a small breadboard friendly power supply with three independent voltage regulators and built-in current monitoring. The target applications are small, mostly digital projects, which don’t need a large 0-30V, 6A benchtop power supply, but at the same time want […]

Tutorial: power line communications

Andrianakis Haris produced this detailed article while completing a thesis toward a B.Sc in Department of Electronic Computer Systems Engineer at Technological Education Institute of Piraeus, Greece. “Power line comnunication (PLC) is the technology that allows data transmission over the existing Power Line network. Power Line can be the home power network or the national […]

Controller for soldering irons using the Hakko T12 type tips update

sparkybg writes: Soon there will be a new version. The most universal I can think of. Isolated USB connection (HID class) for firmware updates, live data, and PID tunning. Will be able to recognize unlimited number of instruments – can read resistor, 1-wire EEPROM or 1-wire MCU in the connector or handle. When MCU is […]

SMD March – Tweaks to Ishan Kehribar’s ethernet gateway

TomKeddie writes: For our SMD March workshops I chose Ishan Keribar’s Embedded Ethernet Gateway. I added an FT230X and usb port with a Arduino uno style reset on CTS (230X has no DTR but avrdude toggles both). I also used a SOB 5050 template to make cases easy to design. By adding an 8MHz variant […]